Vending machines have long been used for selling products to consumers. In the past, vending machine managers needed to send human operators to personally visit each vending machine in order to check on the status of the vending machine, to retrieve the collected cash, and to restock the vending machine with new products to replace the products that had been sold. Recently, these vending machines have been provided with electronic vending machine controllers (VMC), which control the operation of various components within the vending machine. In addition to providing control functionality, the VMC may also serve as a monitoring system for monitoring the status of the vending machine and for keeping track of product sales, inventory, and cash flow.
Even more recently, vending machines have been provided with audit systems capable of retrieving information regarding the status of the vending machine and transmitting the data to a central server, where the data can be processed and analyzed. This can assist the vending machine operator in scheduling service visits to the vending machine location. In many cases, existing vending machines are retrofitted with these types of audit systems, which retrieve the information regarding the vending machine from the VMC.
The National Automatic Merchandising Association (NAMA) has established a communication protocol for the electronic retrieval of machine-level transactions via data polling. This communication protocol is known as the Data Exchange Uniform Code Standard (DEX/UCS), typically referred to as DEX. The DEX protocol establishes standards governing data recordation, file formatting, and file exportation through common interfaces. Current vending machines are typically manufactured to communicate using the DEX protocol and are sometimes referred to as “DEX-compliant.” DEX reporting provides a vending machine operator the ability to track brand and/or product preferences at the point of purchase, and can improve sales performance, reduce operating expenses, and minimize machine malfunctions.
Despite the advances in monitoring technology for vending machines, these audit systems are typically focused on merely retrieving information about the vending machine and transmitting that information to the host system. When there is an error in one component of the vending machine, the audit system may transmit a message to the host system describing the existence of the error, but the underlying cause of the error may be remain unclear. For example, if the audit system is unable to retrieve DEX information from the VMC, the audit system may transmit a message to the host system indicating that a communication error has occurred. It may then be necessary for service personnel to go into the field and examine the vending machine in order to determine the cause of the error.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a vending machine audit system that improves an operator's ability to diagnose and repair problems remotely.